Sometimes, I feel sad online

Social media can make us feel too much — maybe things we can’t feel at this intensity all the time. Representation pic/iStock

Every day, something bad happens. These days, teen girls are being harassed and molested all over this country of ours. We get to see videos, and photos. Then, we hear from all sides, and then we ourselves give our two cents.

Then, at night, we feel overwhelmed by the truth, by the reality, by the possibility that now, we have a front-row seat to despair. Then we wake up feeling a fist-sized bubble in our chest - we feel anxious, we feel sad, we feel tired.

I have realised that on those days, I feel better only when I exit the app. These days, at night, I have started keeping my phone in another room - so that I can't scroll before bed. So that, at 3 am, when I wake up thanks to the cortisol coursing in my system (another fact that Instagram has told me), I don't reach for the phone. So that, when I wake up at 7.30 am for my workout, I don't look at it first thing and feel dread.

It helps. It helps you disconnect from all that's happening, all that could happen, and all that never should have happened. It makes sure that you don't go into a spiral in the morning, which will continue the whole day. The day I spend less time on my phone is the day I make better decisions, and I feel less wired, less chaotic inside my head.

But I am not saying we don't need it. A few weeks ago, we saw what a social media protest accomplished. A minister resigned, a government was forced to take cognisance. Even now, it's the awareness, the opinions, the protests by the lovely ladies of LSR that are making sure that the Delhi-Kalkaji gang rape that happened two days ago is not forgotten. At least, not so quickly.

We need it. We fight for justice on it. We create on it. We express ourselves on it. We rant on it. We share stuff we find important on it. We rage bait on it. We doomscroll on it. We heal on it. We get educated on it. We find community on it. We get inspired on it. We feel judged on it. We love our lives on it.

But, it also makes us feel too much - maybe things we can't feel at this intensity all the time. It's a sensory overload. And it's a spiral. Imagine you are stalking an ex-lover? Once you are done with his feed and scanning his followers, you decide to stalk his family, then his alleged girlfriend, and then people he worked with. Suddenly, you find yourself on the account of a connection seven times removed, zooming in on a photo to decipher if the hand in it belongs to your ex. What? It makes us lose any iota of self-respect. We feel #noshame.

Some of us use it to troll. Troll that lady who got the iPhone for free (By the way, I am with you on that); we troll that male podcaster who asks nonsensical questions; we troll anyone in a bikini (shame on you); we troll women we think are aunties (shame on you twice); we troll anyone whose lives don't make sense to us, make us feel bad about our lives, and just because we can.

So, it can make us feel very good. And it can make us feel very, very bad. Only thing we can do - get off it the moment we feel that anxiety bubble rising in our chest. Exit the app, and place it as far from you as you can. Get up, and go for a walk, without your phone. Go make a cup of coffee or tea. Watch Friends for 20 minutes. Go to sleep. Lie down upside down on your bed with your feet up the wall. Journal about things you are grateful for. Journal about all the ways you are proud of yourself. Soon, the feeling of destruction and chaos will pass.

Then, when you do pick up your phone, you won't doomscroll, or stalk your ex, or troll people. You will look for the quotes, reels and posts that inspire you - or like me you will watch a Venus retrograde tarot reading. It's scary but it's good for you. Much like social media!

See you next time.

Ranting and raving about all that's trending on social media, Aastha Atray Banan is an author, creator, podcaster, and the Editor of your favourite weekend read, Sunday mid-day. She posts at @aasthaatray on Instagram.
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.